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This game looks more awesome by the minute. It looks like Elder Scrolls world meets the combat of Dynasty Warriors or God of War. Except with more fleshed out spells.

Its an open class system but with a twist with destinies. As you put points in skills it unlocks destinies which is like a class "framework" that can be equipped and changed. This framework provides passive bonuses and alters the mechanics of skills bought, access to armor and weapon types and also provides new skills to use. It is the best version of an open skill system I have seen to date.

I just hope that 38 studios doesn't bankrupt itself with its vaporware mmo before this game can be released.

GiantBomb podcasted an interview with one of the developers today. Sounds pretty slick.

That interview has me worried about the game.

Why's that?

Hearing them describe what makes their game unique. One of them described, with passion, how their troll would shake off attacks while swinging and your big opportunity to hurt him was when he was roaring at you. I'm not expecting the game to be particularly deep, I just expecting it to be engaging, but if a large enemy not attacking you to roar is what gets you wet in the loins, I take the game less seriously.

Think about it. God of War got that right nearly seven years ago on the PS2, hell, even Shadow of the Colossus on a much larger scale. What about that very rote interaction is unique? What separates this game from others is the advertised lack of min-maxing. I would have appreciated it if he talked about three different ways to approach the same scenario. The omission of that story makes me wonder if the combat will have the legs to keep me interested long enough to play through an expansive RPG.

I admit the troll thing did surprise me a bit. Seems like that's pretty much standard these days, that hard-hitting enemies will telegraph their attacks and give you openings. The rest of it sounds great, though, and I can't say I'd be happier if their trolls didn't give you openings like that.

I admit the troll thing did surprise me a bit. Seems like that's pretty much standard these days, that hard-hitting enemies will telegraph their attacks and give you openings. The rest of it sounds great, though, and I can't say I'd be happier if their trolls didn't give you openings like that.

The message got a bit muddled. It's having that well-worn action game convention paired with a deep, grognardy RPG system that is the unique selling point.

Reckoning looks promising. Can't wait to give that demo a spin.
And thanks guys for introducing RPG Fan to me. Nice to have a new podcast to check out.

The message got a bit muddled. It's having that well-worn action game convention paired with a deep, grognardy RPG system that is the unique selling point.

Yeah, I think he was just using that as a simple example of how combat will be dynamic. Sure, it's a standard we expect in a lot of action-adventure titles, but even to this day most RPG titles still are either mindless clickfests or waiting for die rolls to see how effective you are.

I admit this game seems interesting but I expect it to die with a whimper. Both the name and the art style make it look incredibly generic (without the Giant Bomb coverage I still would be uninterested), and that's combined with the fact that EA seems to have decided it's "partner" program isn't that successful after all and has done pretty poor promotion of this thing.

Not from where I stand. They've been releasing a trailer every week for many weeks now. They've also released a good amount of lengthy gameplay videos, at least 100% more than most RPG games. As far as I know, they've had a presence at every geek related trade show. And as you've seen above, some of the team recently went to southern California to speak about the game, not limited to, Giant Bomb, RPGFan, and I also saw they were on Invisible Walls at Gametrailers.

The demo comes out next week for both consoles and I would expect commercials shortly thereafter. Maybe EA's learned something from its past failures, or maybe more faith is being put into this game.

"Duke Nukem Forever's switch from Quake II to Unreal technology took six weeks, but it will ultimately save months of development time."
@Holysh*tMatt

You have to take PR tour talk with a certain amount of salt, but they said on that IGN podcast that a tester tasked with getting 100% completion as fast as possible took a bit over 200 hours, and that the game has over ten novels' worth of writing. That's pretty cool, if it's all true.

I was also pretty intrigued by the possibilities of a normal RPG world preceding an MMO. Imagine plugging 100 hours into Skyrim and then getting to see what's become of the land in 1000 years. Unfortunately the nature of MMOs wouldn't allow any of your actions choices to carry over, but still.

You have to take PR tour talk with a certain amount of salt, but they said on that IGN podcast that a tester tasked with getting 100% completion as fast as possible took a bit over 200 hours, and that the game has over ten novels' worth of writing.

Is that ten Twilights worth of writing or ten A Tale of Two Cities' worth?

Most Played | Become the headshot you want to see in the world. —oilypenguin

You have to take PR tour talk with a certain amount of salt, but they said on that IGN podcast that a tester tasked with getting 100% completion as fast as possible took a bit over 200 hours, and that the game has over ten novels' worth of writing.

Is that ten Twilights worth of writing or ten A Tale of Two Cities' worth?

Statements like these tend to elicit a knee-jerk disparaging from me. It sounds like empty bombast: "we have a bazillion hours of dialogue, all unique and totally fcking awesome! This game will blow you the fck away with our visceral, brutal, unforgiving combat!". B*tch, please. Nine times out of ten, when I hear stuff like this, it's just more of the same with the expected incremental improvements. (Not that that's a bad thing)

I grew out of Salvatore a little into college, but his stuff is better than most game writing. I wonder how much of it is actually him, and how much is just ideas of his.

When he's mentioned, they generally say something to the effect that he created 10,000 years worth of history. I get the feeling he has next to nothing to do with in-game dialogue, unlike Todd McFarlane who has been involved in the animation and whatnot.

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

Hey, I'm loving Skyrim. If somebody else can create a compelling and very open world but actually get the combat right, I'm down. Don't get me wrong - I've speced heavily into dual-casting Destruction magic and I generally lay absolute waste to everybody I find without trouble. But it's not really very interesting or fun, and what I've seen of the sword play is pretty similar. If they can put an engaging combat where I actually have to dodge, roll, block, and do special attacks and stuff, I'm in.

muttonchop wrote:

If you strike me down, I shall become more fabulous than you can possibly imagine.

Someone said this game has a lack of promotion? I was just thinking that I haven't seen a non-MMO promoted this thoroughly! Seriously, they push info in at least 3 regular weekly updates that I can count from memory. I was actually wondering of that's because the franchise goes in the MMO direction after this.